


Saudade

by sennawritesthings



Category: The Witchlands Series - Susan Dennard
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 10:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21242825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sennawritesthings/pseuds/sennawritesthings
Summary: saudade: refers to a sense of loneliness and incompleteness; a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present; can more casually be used to say that you miss someone or something, even if you’ll see that person or thing in the near future. it differs from nostalgia in that one can feel “saudade” for something that might never have happeneda very small reimagining of multiple scenes throughout bloodwitch (so if you haven't read it, don't read this).





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> baeseult sweeties,,, i'm sorry,,,

The Bloodwitch was not well.

Iseult could see it. Owl could see it. It worried them both, though they tried their best to hide it. Iseult most of all, for Owl, but she didn’t think she was doing her job well. Owl grew more and more anxious every time Aeduan drew a watery breath in his sleep, which in turn made Iseult more and more anxious when the room would tremble lightly with Owl’s worry.

Day in and day out, the Bloodwitch slowed, grew weaker. When he slept, his breathing labored heavily. When he coughed, his hand would come away with blood. He wasn’t eating much. His color grew paler and paler. His lungs were filling with _something_.

He was dying.

Iseult didn’t know what frightened her more—the Bloodwitch’s death, and the loss of her protection and guidance or being left alone again. She’d already lost Safi. Though she and Aeduan could hardly be considered friends, the thought of losing him… Iseult ignored the churn of her gut.

For one blessed night, Owl was asleep, settled on the floor of their room by the bed where Aeduan slept, allowing Iseult to tend to Aeduan in peace. Whenever she was awake, Owl was always hovering behind her to make sure she did everything all right, despite not knowing herself.

She dipped a cloth in water and wiped away the sweat at his brow. Recently, he had developed a small fever that Iseult knew would worsen over time. She sighed as he coughed fitfully, glancing at Owl, who shifted at the noise, but settled back into restless sleep when Aeduan’s coughs subsided.

He needed a healer, not the measly Painstone he’d gotten, but they couldn’t travel well with him in his condition. He couldn’t walk for long. A horse would make his pain and wounds worse. A carriage was too expensive and noticeable. She knew if they didn’t find one…

Iseult didn’t know what to do.

She shouldn’t let it trouble her. She could leave. She knew how to survive well enough on her own. Mathew and Habim had taught her how. It wouldn’t take much for her to pack her things—the little of it she had—and creep out the door of the inn while Owl slept and Aeduan died.

The thought lay heavy in her chest.

She couldn’t. She truly knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t abandon Owl, no matter how she disliked the child. Not after the promise to return her to her family. It would be what she wanted. It _was_ what Iseult wanted, to be reunited with Safi. She couldn’t abandon Aeduan.

Iseult cleaned his face with the cloth. His eyes fluttered beneath his lids. He looked so much younger than he did when he was awake. She brushed her fingers against his cheek. He turned his head into her hands. His eyes fluttered again, but remained closed. She briefly wondered if he was feigning sleep, but his breathing pattern told her otherwise.

_Your touch is too much_.

The words crashed over her as they had when he’d said them to her just days ago. It was too much. Him. Owl. _His death_—his blood would be on her hands. Being alone.

_Stasis, stasis, stasis_.

Within one breath, she rested her forehead against Aeduan’s, cupping his face wholly. When she realized what she’d done, she didn’t pull away despite her every instinct telling her it would be best. But her need to be close to someone—her need to be close to him, to find a tether to keep him there a little while longer outweighed everything else.

“Stay,” she murmured against his lips. She pressed her lips to his lightly, hoping to breath some life into him. “Stay with me, Bloodwitch.”

Aeduan stirred, but did not wake.

*

The last thing Aeduan wanted to be was indebted to Prince Leopold, and yet that was exactly how he ended up.

If not for his arrival, the Threadwitch would not have been able to leave town in search of a healer and found one. He been conscious enough one night to find her and her things gone. It hadn’t surprised him then, that she’d left. He hadn’t even questioned it. It surprised him when he found Owl clutching the Truthwitch’s cutlass that he knew was dear to her. The little Earthwitch had said it was to keep the prince in line. It surprised him—begrudgingly—when Leopold told him of her search for a healer. It outright sent him into shock when she had returned with one. _She had returned._

He tried to be angry with her over spending the last of their coin on the woman, but he couldn’t do so. He mustered it up to his aching wounds leaving him drained of much else but fatigue.

He knew, though, that if she had not bribed the healer with all the money they had, Aeduan would be dead. She hadn’t been able to do much, but he wasn’t bleeding nearly as much as he had been days before, internally or other. She’d drained his lungs and closed up the slices in his skin, but with the curse set on him by those damned arrows they’d only reopened. While they were little more than scratch marks, he knew that with time they would be at their original size.

His ribs ached. He could already feel his lungs filling again.

Aeduan may have dealt death, welcomed it even, but he was not quite ready to die. Not when he had things to do.

The first of which was getting Iseult and Owl out of the way. The Fury would return to take care of them, and he didn’t know when that might be, but if not The Fury then the barrage of different scents hitting his nose all at once. Soldiers were close, some already in the inn while Aeduan helped Iseult ready a horse.

Just one.

Iseult hadn’t liked it, but it was always going to end up like this. Her eyes cut into him the arrows that had pierced him.

“You might lie to yourself, but you cannot lie to me.”

_Your touch is too much_.

Footsteps pounded outside the stables. Iseult turned to sweep onto the horse. It occurred to him then, that it may very well be the last time they saw each other. And if it wasn’t, it would be the last time he would know her as _this_ Threadwitch, the one who, despite hiding her emotions well, he had learned to read as easily as his witchery allowed him to catch a scent from miles away.

They would be strangers to each other. She would see him as the monster he was. As she should.

The thought sent an ache that had nothing to do with his wounds—or perhaps everything to do with them—through his chest. Her touch was too much for him, yes, but suddenly her touch was something Aeduan needed. To know that she was real and that she had stayed when she had many chances to leave. To know that he had known her, even if for a little time. To know that they weren’t quite friends, but they weren’t quite enemies, but they were something and that was more than Aeduan had had since he was a child.

He reached for her hand, linking their pinkies together as he spun her to face him. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks pinked when he pressed his forehead against hers in a gesture that felt familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d felt it before. Their lips just barely grazed each other.

He wanted to ask her to stay. He knew she would. He wanted _her_ to ask him to stay. But she wouldn’t because she knew that even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t. Not when he needed them safe.

And as long as he was a Bloodwitch, a monster, the son of the Raider King, they would not be.

“Mhe varujta,” he murmured against her lips. Then he turned her away.

Iseult jumped onto the horse, Owl clutching tightly to her as she wailed into the Threadwitch’s body just as soldiers burst into the stable.

Aeduan did not watch them ride away. Instead, he held them off until Blueberry arrived, slamming into the stable and the soldiers, giving Aeduan the time he needed to run.

He sniffed the air, picking up Owl’s scent and he ran in the opposite direction, turning his cloak inside out to escape the eyes of his enemies. He tucked away the warmth of the Truthwitch’s breath on his lips and the ghost of her touch on his skin where he kept the memories of his mother and his dog.

The words _stay with me, Bloodwitch_, ringing in his ears.

**Author's Note:**

> when i say small reimagining i mean a small one lol i just wanted to add my favorite character a is out of it when character b says or does something but they're not really out of it and remember it later just not that it was character b trope


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